Fashion jewelry has become a big market in the recent years. People like to purchase jewelry just based on the extrinsic value, and many do not care if natural gemstones are used. Fashion jewelry is typically produced at very low cost using artificial gemstones, including both translucent gemstones (e.g., synthetics and/or simulants of diamond, ruby, emerald sapphire, topaz, and alexandrite, among many others) and opaque/semi-opaque gemstones (e.g., synthetics and/or simulants of turquoise, opal, jade, agate, tourmaline, and tiger's eye, among many others). Generally, simulated gemstones are less expensive than synthetic gemstones and are, therefore, preferred for low-cost fashion jewelry. However, the quality of simulated gemstones is usually not very good.
A process referred to as “multipletting” is often used in the fashion jewelry industry to produce doublets or triplets. In the context of making simulated translucent or transparent gemstones, the multipletting process generally includes coating a clear or translucent body with color and attaching it together with another clear or translucent body and subsequently manufacturing the bonded materials together as a gemstone. This gives the final product a colored-gemstone look, and the process can produce simulants less expensively than the cost of producing any of many natural gemstones.
The multipletting process can be performed on a variety of materials, including, but not limited to, glass, resin, quartz, topaz, etc. The process of bonding them together is also different for different manufacturers and includes, but is not limited to, UV-activated adhesives, heat and pressure-based adhesives, etc. To coat the clear material with color, different manufacturers use different material and techniques, which mostly include, but are not limited to, dyes and mixing different coloring with a clear chemical that can be sprayed over the clear or translucent substrate. The present technology of applying color between two or more clear or translucent bodies is restricted to a single color and plain patterns, which can be achieved by spraying a chemical coating. Moreover, the consistency of colors in conventional multipletting techniques is dependent on the quality of the sprayed coating, and a slight change in the process due to human error can change the colors considerably. This leads to simulated gemstones that lack consistency and, therefore, that lack quality.
Manufacturers produce simulants that imitate finished (e.g., shaped and polished) natural opaque and semi-opaque gemstones using various techniques. However, the look of these simulants is often not accurate relative to the finished natural gemstones they are trying to imitate. In addition, the quality is often poor.